Transitions and Gray Areas
6. Summary and Conclusions
Building upon an indepth look at previous scholarship in the field of the typology of writing systems with a focus on the taxonomies proposed and respective terminology used, we have posited in section 1 two basic map
ping types in writing systems, namely morphographic and phonographic mappings. Crucially, in our understanding of morphography as a map
ping type between one or more morphemes and one or more graphs, mor
phemes are seen as linguistic units havingboth: form and function, sound and meaning. Phonographic mappings are further divided into two sub
types, depending on whether or not morphemespecific knowledge is re
quired from the reader, the writer or both (as is, by definition, also the case in morphographic mappings). We thus ultimately arrive at a tripartite di
vision, with morphograms, morphonograms, and phonograms as the ba
sic functional types of graphs or strings of graphs.
Transitions from morphograms to phonograms and vice versa as treated in sections 2 and 3 are well attested in the process of script trans
fer, but also within writing systems. The level of phonology can thus be demonstrated to be everything but irrelevant to morphography and morphograms. In order to explain, for instance, that phonograms are developed on the basis of morphograms on a regular basis, the latter must not be conceived of as graphs either “denot[ing] the meaning but not the pronunciation of a morpheme” (Daniels and Bright, 1996, p. xlii) or as “represent[ing] primarily the meaning (and sometimes secondar
ily the sound) of one word or morpheme” (Taylor and Taylor, 1983, p. 21). Instead, the label ‘morphography’ is to be taken at face value:
Morphographic writing systems are not just “meaningbased systems”
in contradistinction to “soundbased systems” (Cook, 2016, p. 6), but morphemebased systems instead.
Transitions from morphograms to phonograms were crucial in shap
ing various writing systems throughout history, including but by far not limited to the Chinese and Japanese writing systems, from which the majority of examples in the preceding sections was taken. As we have seen in section 3, semanticizations of phonograms and thereby transi
tions to morphograms also occur regularly, even if on a smaller scale.
We have observed this phenomenon, for instance, with socalled hetero
grams in Middle Iranian languages as well as with abbreviations, par
ticularly when borrowed, e.g., from Latin to English. What these two cases have in common is that some sounds are omitted already in the donor writing system—whether in the Aramaic abjad or in the case of
Romanbased abbreviations. As incomplete phonographic spellings re
quiring morphemespecific knowledge they were eventually borrowed en blocinto other writing systems as fullfledged morphograms.
While transitions may thus occur in both directions, the typologi
cal status of graphs or strings of graphs at a given time is not always clearcut, as we have seen in section 4. A solution taking into account the respective productivity of graphs as phonograms seems possible at first, but is only really feasible for both extremes: If a phonogram oc
curs in the spelling of one specific morpheme or string of morphemes only an interpretation as a morphogram appears appropriate. In con
trast to this, a phonogram that occurs in the spelling ofanynumber of morphemes should be considered a phonogram. For cases in between these two extremes, however, the situation is less clear, leaving us with a large number of disputable or even indeterminable cases.
Our brief survey of a selection of semantically motivated phono
grams in section 5 has shown that phonography is, despite what the term itself suggests, not necessarily always purely related to the level of phonology. Instead, the polyvalence of graphs being used as both phonograms and morphograms on different occasions may lead to se
mantic allusions based on their morphographic usage whenever they are used as phonograms. Certainly not all such allusions readers may
‘identify’ in a given spelling are intentional in the end, but for a sub
stantial amount of cases it is safe to assume so. Among the questions to be explored in future research is the possibility of semantic allusions in phonographic writing systems lacking the abovementioned polyva
lence of graphs. At least in systems traditionally characterized as featur
ing a deep orthography—in other words: systems involving morphono
grams on a regular basis, thus providing conventionalized links between specific spellings and morphemes—it is possible to achieve a similar ef
fect by deviating from the conventional spelling of a given morpheme, replacing at least part of it with a spelling associated with another, (near)homophonous morpheme. This may be illustrated by uncon
ventional spellings along the lines of<eggceptional>and<eggcellent>
(also <eggcellent>, <EGGcellent> etc.) for exceptional andexcellent in the context of egg recipes, Easter etc., or<amazeing>,<aMAZEing>or similar foramazing in the context of labyrinths. Here as with the other phenomena addressed, further comparative research is needed.
References
Barešová, Ivona (2016).Japanese Given Names: A Window into Contemporary Japanese Society. Olomouc: Palacký University Olomouc.
(2017). “Chrysanthemum, Pine and Crane—Female Names of Meiji Period Japan.” In:Studia Orientalia Slovaca16.2, pp. 39–67.
Baxter, William H. and Laurent Sagart (2014a). “BaxterSagart Old Chi
nese reconstruction, version 1.1.” url:https://ocbaxtersagart.lsait.
lsa.umich.edu/BaxterSagartOCbyMandarinMC2014--09--20.pdf.
(2014b).Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction. Oxford: Oxford Uni
versity Press.
Bentley, John R. (2016).ABC Dictionary of Ancient Japanese Phonograms. Hon
olulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
Boltz, William G. (1994).The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writ
ing System. New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society.
Chao, Yuen Ren (1968).Language and Symbolic Systems. Cambridge: Cam
bridge University Press.
Cook, Vivian (2016). “Background to the English writing system.” In:
The Routledge Handbook of the English Writing System. Ed. by Vivian Cook and Des Ryan. London: Routledge, pp. 5–23.
Coulmas, Florian (1996).The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems. Ox
ford: Blackwell.
(2003). Writing Systems. An Introduction to their Linguistic Analysis.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Daniels, Peter T. (2018).An Exploration of Writing. Sheffield: Equinox.
Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright (1996). The World’s Writing System.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DeFrancis, John (1984). The Chinese language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu:
University of Hawai‘i Press.
(1989).Visible Speech. The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems. Hon
olulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
Doi, Tadao [土 井 忠 生] (1963). 吉 利 支 丹 文 献 考[Studies in Kirishitan Docu
ments].東京[Tōkyō]:三省堂[Sanseidō].
Duret, Claude (1613).Thresor de l’histoire des langues de cest univers. Contenant les Origines, Beautés, Perfections, Decadences, Mutations, Changemens, Conuer
sions & Ruines des langues. Cologny: Matth. Berjon.
(1619). Thresor de l’histoire des langues de cest univers. Contenant les Origines, Beautez, Perfections, Decadences, Mutations, Changements, Conuersions,
& Ruines des Langues. Yverdon: Imprimerie de la Societé Helvetiale Cal
doresque.
French, M.A. (1976). “Observations on the Chinese script and the classi
fication of writing systems.” In:Writing without Letters. Ed. by W. Haas.
Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 101–129.
Fukumori, Takahiro [福盛貴弘] and Jun Ikeda [池田潤] (2002). “文字の分 類案:一般文字学の構築を目指して[A Classification of Writing Systems:
A Step toward General Graphology].” In: 一般言語学論叢 [Journal of General Linguistics]4, pp. 35–58.
Galambos, Imre (2006). Orthography of Early Chinese Writing: Evidence from Newly Excavated Manuscripts. Budapest: Department of East Asian Stud
ies, Eötvös Loránd University.
Gelb, Ignace J. (1963).A Study of Writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gnanadesikan, Amalia E. (2009).The Writing Revolution. Cuneiform to the In
ternet. Chichester: WileyBlackwell.
(2017). “Towards a typology of phonemic scripts.” In:Writing Systems Research9.1, pp. 14–35.
Haas, William (1983). “Determining the Level of a Script.” In: Writing in Focus. Ed. by Florian Coulmas and Konrad Ehlich. Berlin: Mouton, pp. 15–29.
Handel, Zev (2019). Sinography. The Borrowing and Adaptation of the Chinese Script. Leiden: Brill.
Hill, Archibald A. (1967). “The typology of writing systems.” In:Papers in Linguistics in Honor of Léon Dostert. Ed. by William M. Austin. The Hague:
Mouton, pp. 92–99.
Ijichi, Tetsuo [伊地知鐵男], ed. (1986). 増補改訂仮名変体集[A Collection of Kana Variants, Enlarged and Corrected].東京[Tōkyō]:新典社[Shintensha].
Joyce, Terry (2011). “The significance of the morphographic principle for the classification of writing systems.” In:Written Language & Literacy 14.1, pp. 58–81.
(2016). “Writing systems and scripts.” In:Verbal Communication.
Ed. by Andrea Rocci and Louis de Saussure. Berlin: De Gruyter Mou
ton, pp. 287–308.
Junker, Heinrich J. (1911). The Frahang i Pahlavīk. First Part: Prolegomena.
Heidelberg: Winter.
Kana Study Group [かな研究会] (1988).実用変体がな[Hentaigana for Practi
cal Use].東京[Tōkyō]:新典社[Shintensha].
Kashima, Eiichi [鹿島英一] (1993). “日華両語における外来語の表記法[On the spelling of loanwords in Japanese and Chinese].” In:東北大学文学 部日本語学科論集[Journal of the Department of Japanese, Tōhoku University]3, pp. 13–24.
Kinoshita, Masatoshi [木 下 正 俊], ed. (2001). 萬 葉 集 Ｃ Ｄ － Ｒ Ｏ Ｍ 版 [Man’yōshū, CDROM Edition].東京[Tōkyō]:塙書房[Hanawa shobō].
Kojima, Yukie [小島幸枝] (1993). “「耶蘇」という宛字について [On the
‘assigned characters’耶蘇].” In:獨協大学教養諸学研究[Dokkyō University Bulletin of Liberal Arts]27.2, pp. 85–92.
Kōno, Rokurō [河野六郎] (1977). “文字の本質[On the nature of writing].”
In:文字[Writing]. Vol. 8.岩波講座日本語[Iwanami Course on Japanese].
東京[Tōkyō]:岩波書店[Iwanami shoten], pp. 1–22.
Kudrinski, Maksim (2017). “Heterograms in Hittite, Palaic, and Luwian context.” In:Journal of Language Relationship15.4, pp. 238–249.
Kudrinski, Maksim and Ilya Yakubovich (2016). “Sumerograms and Akkadograms in Hittite: Ideograms, Logograms, Allograms, or Het
erograms?” In:Altorientalische Forschungen43.1–2, pp. 53–66.
Lurie, David B. (2011).Realms of Literacy. Early Japan and the History of Writing.
Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.
Lurie, David B. (2012). “The development of writing in Japan.” In:The shape of script: How and why writing systems change. Ed. by Stephen D. Hous
ton. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press, pp. 159–185.
Matsumoto, Mallory E. (2017). “From sound to symbol: orthographic se
mantization in Maya hieroglyphic writing.” In:Writing Systems Research 9.2, pp. 99–122.
Matsunaga, Sachiko (1996). “The Linguistic Nature of Kanji Reexam
ined: Do Kanji Represent Only Meanings?” In:The Journal of the Associ
ation of Teachers of Japanese30.2, pp. 1–22.
MoraMarín, David F. (2003). “The origin of Mayan syllabograms and orthographic conventions.” In:Written Language & Literacy6, pp. 193–
238.
Omodaka, Hisataka [澤瀉久孝] (1967).時代別国語大辞典上代編[Great Dic
tionary of the Japanese Language by Periods: Old Japanese].東京[Tōkyō]:三省 堂[Sanseidō].
Ōno, Tōru [大野透] (1957). “義字的假名に就て–萬葉集を中心として [On semantically motivated phonograms, focusing on theMan’yōshū].” In:
国語国文[Japanese Language and Literature]26.9, pp. 43–56.
(1977).續萬葉假名の硏究[A Study of Old Japanese Phonograms, Con
tinued].東京[Tōkyō]:高山本店[Takayama honten].
Osterkamp, Sven (2008). “Official Regulations and Unwritten Rules for Place Name Spellings in 8th to 10thcentury Japan: A Conspectus of their Consequences and Sideeffects.” In:Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ost
asienforschung31, pp. 213–244.
Osterkamp, Sven and Gordian Schreiber (forthcoming). “<Th>e Ubi
<qu>ity of Polygra<ph>y and its Significan<ce> for <th>e Typology of <Wr>iti<ng> Systems.” In:Written Language & Literacy.
Popescu, Florin (2004). “「講義要綱」における合字本語について[On the ligatures for Western words in the JesuitCompendia].” In:京都大学國文 學論叢[Kyōto University Review of Japanese Literature]12, pp. 1–23.
Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (1991).Lexicon of Reconstructed Pronunciation in Early Middle Chinese, Late Middle Chinese, and Early Mandarin. Vancouver: Uni
versity of British Columbia Press.
Rickmeyer, Jens (1986). “Zur Negation im Japanischen.” In: Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung9, pp. 197–216.
Rogers, Henry (2005). Writing Systems. A Linguistic Approach. Malden:
Blackwell.
Sampson, Geoffrey (1985).Writing Systems. A Linguistic Introduction. London:
Hutchinson.
(2015).Writing Systems. 2nd ed. Sheffield: Equinox.
Schmalz, Xenia et al. (2015). “Getting to the bottom of orthographic depth.” In:Psychonomic Bulletin & Review22, pp. 1614–1629.
Schreiber, Gordian (forthcoming). Japanese Morphography: Deconstructing
‘hentai kanbun’. Leiden: Brill.
Shaked, Shaul (1993). “A Dictionary of Aramaic Ideograms in Pahlavi.”
In:Journal of the American Oriental Society113.1, pp. 75–81.
Sproat, Richard (2000). A Computational Theory of Writing Systems. Cam
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
(2013). “A note on Unger’s ‘What linguistic units do Chinese characters represent?’” In:Written Language & Literacy16.1, pp. 107–111.
(2016). “English among the world’s writing systems.” In: The Routledge Handbook of the English Writing System. Ed. by Vivian Cook and Des Ryan. London: Routledge, pp. 27–40.
Taylor, Insup and Martin M. Taylor (1983).The Psychology of Reading. New York: Academic Press.
Tranter, Nicolas (2013). “Logography and layering: A functional cross
linguistic analysis.” In:Written Language & Literacy16.1, pp. 1–31.
Unger, Marshall J. (2004).Ideogram. Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disem
bodied Meaning. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
(2011). “What linguistic units do Chinese characters repre
sent?” In:Written Language & Literacy14.2, pp. 293–302.
Vigenère, Blaise de (1586/1587). Traicté des chiffres, ou secretes manieres d’escrire. Paris: Abel L’angelier.
Vovin, Alexander (2017).Man’yōshū, Book 1. Leiden: Brill.
Wenck, Günther (1954). Japanische Phonetik. 2. Die Phonetik der Manyōgana.
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Whittaker, Gordon (2011). “Writing Systems.” In:The Cambridge Encyclo
pedia of the Language Sciences. Ed. by Patrick Colm Hogan. New York:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 935–939.
Wittkamp, Robert F. (2009). “Schriftspiele mit Landschaft und Erin
nerung: Zur Zeichenverwendung im Man’yōshū.” In: Oriens Extremus 48, pp. 251–270.
Yoshida, Yutaka [吉田豊] (2001). “ソグド文字[Sogdian script].” In: 世界 文字辞典[Encyclopedia of the World’s Writing Systems]. Ed. by Rokurō Kōno [河野六郎], Eiichi Chino [千野栄一], and Tatsuo Nishida [西田龍雄].東 京[Tōkyō]:三省堂[Sanseidō], pp. 551–555.
(2013). “Buddhist Texts Produced by the Sogdians in China.”
In: Buddhism Among the Iranian Peoples of Central Asia. Ed. by Matteo de Chiara, Mauro Maggi, and Giulana Martini. Vol. 1. Multilingualism and History of Knowledge. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, pp. 155–179.
(2016). “Sogdian Language I. Description.” In: Encyclopædia Iranica. Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation. url: http : / / www . iranicaonline.org/articles/sogdian-language-01.
Yoshioka, Mayumi [吉岡真由美] (2019). “『萬葉集』における〈漢字〉の用法: 単音節・多音節の訓仮名字母について[On the usage of sinograms in the Man’yōshū: Characters used as monosyllabic or polysyllabickungana].”
In:同志社日本語研究[Dōshisha Studies in Japanese Linguistics]22, pp. 25–37.
Zender, Marc Uwe (1999). “Diacritical Marks and Underspelling in the Classic Maya Script: Implications for Decipherment.” MA thesis. Uni
versity of Calgary.